Happy New Year and best wishes for 2017!!

To start off the new year the entire Mastermind discography is now on sale on bandcamp at a special 50% discount when you purchase the entire catalog. Full fidelity audio or choose from several audio formats, FLAC to mp3, it’s quite a bargain for $37 USD! Simply click on any album and purchase info is below the album price. Take advantage of this deal now!

In other news, Mastermind guitarist Bill Berends has set up a new bandcamp music store called BENVALIA MUSIC to make solo works and other non-Mastermind recordings available. Both Benificial to the artists and of Value to the discerning listener, please take a moment to check it out and like Benvalia Music on Facebook while your at it. Thanks! 🙂

“Benvalia Music showcases works performed, produced, and/or curated by resident musician/producer Bill Berends. Home to a careful selection of styles, bands and artists, it was set up to bring quality music to fans world-wide.”

Titles on Benvalia Music include BIll’s 1988 solo new age electronica EP Life Cycle, pianist brother David Berends’ prog-pop band THE NAME, prog keyboardist Micheal West, and other carefully selected artists Bill has worked with or produced over the years. More interesting music and more Bill Berends solo material both new and old is coming in the near future.

That’s it for now! Please join the Berends Music Mailing List if you have not already.

Here’s to a wonderful New Year!

ps: the Broken EP will be added sooner or later along with other vintage live recordings and various oddities and out takes. So much to do, so little time, please check back often!

Since the demise of Mindawn as our digital distributor, several Mastermind catalog titles have been officially unavailable anywhere online. This unacceptable situation has now been rectified by adding several new titles to our new & improved Mastermind Nimbit Webstore.

As physical CD’s released by Inside Out (Europe/USA) and Avalon (Japan/Asia) the discs have been out of print & sold out for some time with all rights reverting back to us. Thanks to the internet working for us for a change, the albums are again available as digital downloads.

We’ve made some pretty cool albums that still not enough people have heard! And since we’re not exactly competing in the trendy popular music charts, release dates are almost irrelevant for the most part. The music is timeless and could have been released yesterday.

Our Nimbit Webstore sample clips will give you a good overview of an album, but we’ll also be making albums available streaming in-full on youtube so you can enjoy them and fall in love with them. If you already know these albums; we love you! Now anyone can listen to them anywhere, whenever they please. Mastermind worldwide… for free! You can’t beat that.

The first featured album is Angels of the Apocalypse ….

Angels of the Apocalypse was a dramatic shift for us, adding a female vocalist and moving in a decisively more metal direction. It’s risky and experimental, powerful yet nimble, and quite unique sounding. Give it a listen and decide for yourself! Such wonderful performances from vocalist Lisa Bouchelle and Jens Johansson on keys are truly outstanding. I haven’t listened to this for quite some time now and have to say, it’s making my Mastermind juices flow. Mastermind juices… hahah. eww. Anyway, I am proud of this work, the music, and all the people we worked with in making it happen including my bro’ Rich Berends who’s feet were on fire making this one! Also remembering bassist and departed friend Bob Eckman. R.I.P.

The early Mastermind trio albums are all up on mastermind.bandcamp.com streaming in-full along with some exclusive digital-only releases. Our newest album Insomnia (2010) is under contract with Lion Music. Also check out Bill Berends new solo album In My Dreams I Can Fly.

Listen free! -> Love!! -> *purchase* <- thank you!!! ps: please sign up to the mailing list for exclusive updates & more.

Bb

progressive metal, progressive rock, jazz-metal, acid rock

It’s been a while since things have been updated here. We all hope everyone had a nice holiday season and your 2013 is off to a good start!
—
We’re kicking off 2013 here with some new music from Mastermind guitarist Bill Berends. The Kickstarter campaign to fund the release (see previous blog entry) was a resounding success and Bill’s new solo album In My Dreams I Can Fly is available now. You can check out music samples and purchase CD’s or downloads on CD Baby and a variety of other sources.

Lots of melodic tunes and guitar work on this album, and although it’s more straight forward rock compared to Mastermind releases, so far feedback from Mastermind fans has ranged from positive to highly enthusiastic. Read the first review here for a more objective view and stop by CD Baby to hear some samples.

Prog-rock fans may know Jason Gianni, the drummer on this album, from his work with the Neal Morse Band. Jason is a real powerhouse and gives the album a different feel, making it more of a ‘solo album’ rather than a reworked Mastermind release. It’s generally an upbeat and positive sounding album… “Joyful” was the word Keiko Kumagai of Ars Nova used to describe it when she heard it. It’s also a good album to play in the car! It just may get you where you’re going a bit faster, so check it out.
—
In Mastermind news… there is no news really. There is a new album in the works, but it seems to be painfully slow going for a variety of reasons. But it will come, sooner or later. There is lots of new music written. The Berends Brothers Band has been playing a few old Mastermind tunes in their live set, but that doesn’t always go over so well in mixed company. Rich Berends has been playing with the Philly metal outfit “Frost Giant”, his son-in-law’s band, and Bill is gigging with Treasures of the Spirit Mahavishnu tribute, but there are currently no concrete plans for any future Mastermind shows. That could change.

If there was a good reason to get Mastermind up and running again it could be done. We could have a concert set ready to go in a fairly short period of time… make us an offer! But playing out locally as a progressive band, in all honesty, there isn’t much of a demand for it. So we will continue to make recordings and see where the road leads us. Never say never. Thanks for reading, check out the links above, and best wishes for 2013! -Bb
—
ps: Mastermind’s 2010 release Insomnia is also available on CD Baby now.

While recording a new Mastermind track exclusively for the upcoming Lion Music Japanese tsunami benefit album I was reminded of another track we recorded many moons ago. An instrumental entitled “Miles To Go Before I Sleep” exclusive to the 3rd Cyclops Records (UK) label sampler and never released anywhere else. It seems as relevant to us now as it did 15 years ago. Since it’s a youtube world, here’s a quick video to keep your eyes happy as well…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9VhJWwHo8Q

We have now made this track available again for the first time since 1996 on our bandcamp download page… http://mastermind.bandcamp.com/track/miles-to-go-before-i-sleep

We hope you enjoy it and also hope you will check out the tsunami benefit album, primarily because it is a very worthy endeavor! But also because, much like this track, it is another exclusive instrumental piece we are quite pleased with and want you to hear. It might almost seem like these one-off recordings mark turning points in our musical direction… could be!

We’ve added a few more albums to our page at bandcamp.com for your listening pleasure. These early albums are getting harder to find on CD, so we hope to make the music more readily available to anyone who is interested. You can stream full albums online (free) and purchase downloads in any format (mp3, ACC, ogg, FLAC, Apple Lossless) for one low price.

Go have a listen! mastermind.bandcamp.com

All album downloads include printable PDF covers.

* all titles are also available at http://mindawn.com/artists/mastermind – please note that Mindawn and Bandcamp are the ONLY authorized sites to download these back catalog titles.